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Amara and Petrie followed in after him. Their heads bobbed around as they took in Skye and Tidas’ room. The furniture and carpets matched the room, except for a small bundle of bedding in the corner. It looked like a bed for the world’s largest dog, but found out that it was Zazzy’s old bed.

“I canna believe she used ta be that small,” Amara commented with a soft smile.

Skye chuckled; “Actually, she was tiny when she’d hatched. Smaller than an adult cat, but she shot up to small dog-sized within a week. I miss her curlin’ up by me head when we slept. Her wee trilly purr was like a knock-out drug.”

Shasta eyed the two new Highlanders with suspicion. She liked Petrie well enough, but Murdoc and Amara were basically the heads of the Highlands. She had fought Murdoc himself twice, but he always ran off as soon as he saw Tidas on the field.

Her ears bent back partially on instinct, which Amara had caught. She knew of Shasta through reputation and from Skye’s stories, and figured that she and Zas would be hard sells on the whole ‘friendship’ aspect. Both sides had bloodied pasts caused by the other, and to expect no animosity was a fanciful notion.

Amara’s eyes zeroed in on Shasta as she spoke in a poised manner; “I take it that ya be the Vice Commander of the RMC. I be Amara McLeod, and this be Murdoc Campbell: King of the Highlands.”

Tidas looked between the two women, then shared an anxious glance with Murdoc. They were both sarcastic, intelligent, and high-ranking officials in their own kingdoms. But there was a tenseness in the air that was foreboding..

Shasta smiled pleasantly at Amara; “Yep...”

.....

The silence growing deafening, Skye looked at Amara with a half-pleading expression; “Hey, how ’bout ya tell Shasta about Tidas makin’ an arse of himself?”

Shasta looked at Amara with a quirked eyebrow; “How bad was it?”

Amara smirked; “He was sleepin’ next ta Zazzy come nightfall.”

“Hey?! I’m right here,” Tidas bellowed with indignation.

Amara and Shasta both stared at him with cocky grins on their faces as Amara quipped; “Well, dinna make an arse of yer self in the first place if ya don’t want others talkin’ about it. Have ya never heard the phrase ‘If ya couldna tell yer Momma about it, then ya shouldna be doin’ it’? That’s the principle here.”

Tidas huffed and readied himself to snap at Amara when Shasta said; “Oh if he doesn’t want you to tell me about it, then I have to hear it: ammo for later.”

Looking at his older brother, Tidas gestured with his hands at Shasta as he said; “You gonna do something about this?”

Lawrence barked a sharp laugh; “I can do no more about Shasta than you could do about Skye. Resign yourself, my brother.. It’s easier this way.”

Everyone in the room started to laugh, even Tidas, when the King’s right-hand-man came in with a message for Tidas and Lawrence. Magnus had sent out notices to all of the lords in Alcon telling them that a special meeting was going to be held after the celebration banquet. Hearing the conversation, Murdoc perked up..

“What meetin’? What do ya need an emergency meetin’ for?”

Lawrence cleared his throat nervously, but Tidas didn’t miss an honest beat; “Meccano has signed a treaty with our enemy, the Sync kingdom. My oldest brother’s wife, the Crowned Princess Karena’s twin brother is Meccano’s King. The meeting is to discuss the possible scenarios that could develop, and how we’re going to handle them as they come.”

Murdoc smirked; “Sounds like a fight’s a brewin’.. Would make sense for yer ally’s King ta sit in on the meetin’.. Maybe offer some aid..”

Tidas chuckled; “Aye, we already know to come to you if we need skulls crushed. Don’t worry.”

“Or stuff blown up,” Murdoc added softly, but Lawrence’s face scrunched.

“Yours is a newly formed alliance, so I doubt that my Father will allow you to sit in.”

Murdoc quirked an eyebrow at Lawrence; “Who’s this dobber?”

Lawrence’s face went stony as he extended his hand, and replied in obvious irritation; “I’m Lawrence MacArthur: King of Ruscovic.”

Murdoc grabbed his hand and shook it firmly as he said; “Oh aye! The middle brother! I gotcha, I gotcha.. I take it yer goin’?”

Lawrence nodded; “Aye, but that’s because I’m a MacArthur, not because I’m the king of Ruscovic.”

Murdoc shrugged; “So? Just because ya call a tomato a tomato doesna mean it isna a vegetable anymore.”

“Tomatoes are a fruit,” Skye bellowed from the other side of the table as she tried to calm the brewing situation down.

As soon as Petrie had entered the room and saw Nicolas, he started to yell at him; “You arse! Ya forgot ta go see me mother and sister this past Yuletide! I was all set ta surprise’em, and ya never showed up!”

Nicolas had admitted to forgetting his deal with Petrie last year..

When he had agreed to wear the elf costume that the Kringles used for training, Nic had swore to visit Petrie’s family on Yuletide the following year. The children had loved seeing Tidas and Petrie dressed up, and Nicolas driving the sleigh, but Petrie had hated most of the experience. It was uncomfortable and freezing the entire time, but finding a way for his wee sister to meet Santa had been worth the hardship.

Then: he never showed up...

“I set up a fake trap so I could act like I caught ya! Ya know who I caught instead?! Me sister’s, cat Mr. Dinky! She told me ta grow up! That Santa the Claws wasna real!”

Petrie’s words had stung Nicolas, and he knew that he was in the wrong for forgetting his promise. Maevis, on the other hand, didn’t like how he was talking to her best friend. She started to snap at him about showing respect to his elders when Petrie made a crack of his own at Maevis’ expense.

“Respect has ta be earned first! And if people handed out respect based on age alone: you’d be a god by now!”

Recognizing a jab at her age when she heard one, Maevis tore into him; “You wanna talk about respect?! You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but you’re arrogant enough to comment on a lady’s age?! Were you dropped as a child?!”

Murdoc grinned, seeing an opportunity to negate the argument; “But I know you. I met ya as a wee hellion by the river a lifetime ago. And considerin’ that ya havena changed at all since then, Ima one of the few people that CAN comment on yer age. Yer like an antique doll-”

“A doll?! A DOLL?! Listen here, you overgrown tree of a man-”

“Murdy?” Nicolas commented out of no where, making Petrie even more irate as he continued to yell at him.

Amara smiled broadly at the old Fae; “Aye, that be him. And I was Amara Keith back then. I go by McLeod now due to me marriage, but me maiden name be Keith.”

Maevis’ features lit up with surprised happiness before shifting to suspicion; “No shit?! That was you two?! If that’s true, then how did you meet us?”

Murdoc smiled mischievously; “I hooked Santa when I was fishin’, and Amara almost set ‘Miss Mae’ on fire when she came out the water.”

Skye looked away from Petrie’s ranting face, and laughed as she asked; “How did that happen?!”

Maevis shrugged; “We were looking along the bottom for the Celestial Key when a hook got snagged on Nic’s pants. He got yanked up to the surface, so I swam after him, but I also had built up a wee bit of magic. Just in case we came across anything that wanted to give us trouble.”

“Why couldn’t you use your Earth magic to look for it?” Tidas asked.

Maevis chuckled; “I’m good, but not that good. Your wife could do that because she has a Water trait on top of her Earth one. The soil was too saturated for me to be able to shift through more than a few feet of it at a time. And I can’t control as much as Skye can, either. An acre of regular earth is my limit.”

Skye smirked; “Wait.. Ima stronger than you in Earth magic now?!”

“...How do you figure that?” Maevis asked with a confused expression.

Amara and Murdoc told the two elder Fae about how Skye had healed the land that Richard had poisoned. She healed acres at a time, which astounded Maevis. It took massive amounts of magic to mend such massive damage alone..

“Wait, how did you get rid of the Dark and Ether magic that had poisoned the ground?” Maevis asked, not understanding how a non-Light mage could handle it.

Skye rubbed at the side of her neck nervously; “About that: I may or may not have....tapped into me shard of the Celestial Key..”

Both Nicolas and Maevis’ jaws dropped before Maevis nearly yelled; “Why didn’t you tell us that in your room yesterday?!”

Skye shrugged as she lowered her hand, and grabbed her refilled shot glass; “I didna think of it. I told ya that I cleaned up Richard’s mess. I thought that that statement kinda covered it.”

“How could we have Possibly known that you had used the shard to do that?! You only brought it up when you beat Richard!” Maevis had full-on yelled this time.

Skye took her shot, then asked Peggy for another with irritation in her voice before replying to Maevis; “What’s it matter?! Ya knew I could use it. Does it honestly matter that I used it ta heal the land?”

Maevis sighed heavily as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose; “Because the situations are Vastly Different! Killing one person infected with Dark and Ether magic is one thing, but healing huge chucks of land with it requires you to tap into, and use Much more of the Source of All Magic than your body should be able to handle right now.”

“Ima fine! I was fine then, and Ima fine now. So what’s the problem?” Skye asked as she watched Peggy pour her one more shot.

Maevis looked at Nicolas with a stern expression; “You try to explain it! I’m done..”

“Aye,” Nicolas replied as he fluttered up to be directly in front of Skye; “The point is that Mae’s trying to make is that you shouldn’t physically be able to handle pure magic from the Source yet. That magic is a volatile mixture of all types of magical energies, and cannot be separated from one another. If you weren’t you, Skye: you’d be dead right now. And I’d be willing to bet my favorite sleigh that you suffered a lot of internal damage when you did that..”